


Criminal Law 666

by Johnny_Roundy



Category: How to Get Away with Murder, Supernatural
Genre: Crossover, F/M, M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-01-26
Updated: 2021-01-30
Packaged: 2021-03-18 07:40:54
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 11,722
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28988649
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Johnny_Roundy/pseuds/Johnny_Roundy
Summary: Sam tells Dean and John he's going off to college, and it goes about as well as he expected. On the first day of classes, he's lying in bed and can't get up. He feels like he belongs and doesn't at the time. He eventually finds it in him to go to class and it seems like maybe it won't be as hard as he thought, and this professor Annalise Keating seems cool. But people here have secrets, and things get intense. He has secrets too.





	1. Introductions

**Author's Note:**

> Decided to write this after coming across this post https://evermorecastiel.tumblr.com/post/641311713462992896. I intend to make this a multichapter thing with the story developing with Sam in it but I should say right now that it won't be updated on regular intervals.
> 
> Thank you to Tara for being my beta reader.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sam tells Dean and John he's going off to college, and it goes about as well as he expected. On the first day of classes, he's lying in bed and can't get up. He feels like he belongs and doesn't at the time. But he finds it in him to go to class and it seems like maybe it won't be as hard as he thought. And this professor Annalise Keating seems cool.

Sam's half asleep in his new bed when he hears a knock.

"Sam Winchester?"

"What? Uhhm-yes", he drowsily answers.

"Nice to meet you. I guess I'm your roommate. I'm Tom." Sam opens his eyes and sees a tall blonde guy, a real Winklevoss twin. Just the type he expected to have as a classmate in pre-law. He stretches out his hand for a while and retreats when he realizes Sam has no intention of shaking it, but he doesn't make it awkward. He seems confident but still shy, like he knows who he is but isn't sure if you care. And honestly, right now, Sam doesn't. He can barely stay awake.

"Are you going to the morning class today? I assume we have the same one, right?"

"Yeah, I think so." Sam turns over in bed but can't manage to get up.

"......Are you going then? It starts soon."

"I'll be there soon, you go without me." Tom leaves the same way he came in, his stuff already on the other side of the room. Sam didn't even notice him bringing them in. He turns over again and closes his eyes. He spent all night twisting and turning in bed and only managed to fall asleep around 6am. The only thing he could think of was the day he left home, the way the whole house was so full of shouting it felt like it was coming off the walls.

He'd decided to wait until a moment when John seemed to be in a good mood to tell him, and moments like that are hard to come by. He'd done the whole thing in secret, the applications, filling out the forms when John was with Dean, hiding his nerves until the letters started arriving. You don't get a lot of mail when you're basically a nomad, but Sam started being the one to get what little they received a few weeks before the letters were supposed to start coming, so it wouldn't seem suspicious. Or if it did, because of course it did, John would investigate and find nothing. For weeks he did his best not to give anything away. Secrets always had a strange character in the Winchester family, forbidden and nonexistent at the same time. On the one hand, John policed them like the strict commander of low ranking soldiers that he was, always needing to know where they were after school, what took them so long when they walked home by themselves, what they were doing if they wandered off for too long during practice or on a hunt. But on the other hand...that was it. Sometimes they walked home alone and took a bit too long, or they wandered off for a moment. That was all the life they had outside the family. Barely any friends because John wouldn't let them stay over at anyone else's house, and other kids certainly couldn't stay at theirs. And even if they could, they'd only be friends for a few weeks, with all the moving around they did. They couldn't keep anything from John, but also there wasn't much to keep at all. Until Sam decided he was going to college, that is.

He decided he wasn't going to tell Dean until he got an acceptance letter, and when it did, he breathed a sigh of relief and immediately ran to Dean. He stopped before walking through the door, amping himself up for a conversation he knew wouldn't be easy. Dean, always the perfect hunter, realized he was there before he could walk in.

"Sammy? Is that you?" Dean said, sat down, back turned to the door.

Sam walked in, nervous and barely containing a smile at the same time.

"You look suspicious. What's going on?"

"I have something important to talk to you about."

Dean seemed surprised. He was even more surprised when he saw Sam looking around, clearly checking for John, and then closing the door. Sam took a deep breath, and then told him the news. He was so afraid of how Dean would react but he had to be the first person to know. Sam did it like ripping off a bandaid, said it all in one fell swoop and hoped for the best. As soon as he finished retelling everything, he could see in Dean's face that he wasn't taking it well.

"You did _what??_ " Dean opened his mouth to speak several times without any words coming out. He clearly didn't know what to think.

"Dean, you have to understand why I did it. Please tell me you understand." Dean still couldn't say anything. He looked upset. Angry? Sad? Jealous? All at once? Sam couldn't tell. "Dean, dad has us practicing bowhunting instead of studying, thinks we're going soft if we read anything that isn't about hunting. He doesn't care about us, he just wants reinforcements. He's not raising sons, he's breeding cannon fodder for when he gets his revenge fantasy and can't do it all alone. You know that, right?"

"Sam. Don't you talk that way about him."

"I swear I cannot understand how you're so eager to defend him. You above all people should understand. What happened to mom doesn't-"

" _Don't rope her into this_." Dean got up to face Sam and he forced himself to shut up. "Dad is raising us so we can defend ourselves and protect those who can't. We're doing good things, Sam. Don't you walk out on us."

"I'm not walking out on _you_. I'm walking out on him, doing what _I_ want to do, and he's gonna have to let me do it. It's different."

"Sammy, you know he's not gonna like this. And it's not gonna go well for you."

"Too bad. I've made my decision, I'm not going back on it." Dean looked on the verge of tears. There was something else on his mind, and it didn't take long for Sam to know what it was. After a pause, Dean looked Sam in the eyes.

"Why didn't you tell me? Why just now?", he asks, and Sam's heart breaks, but he has to tell the truth.

"Because you're a good soldier. You would have told him. Maybe not right away, but if he asked if anything was going on with me, you wouldn't lie." Dean laughed a small laugh in disbelief and said nothing for a long time. Sam kept glancing between him and the floor, waiting for him to say something. After a while, he finally did.

"You really are selfish, you know? We have a good life here" Sam scoffed. Dean was angry, doing his best not to cry. "No, we do. Sure, dad's hard on us but he's doing his best and he loves us, and he's teaching us how to do good things, save people. And you're gonna walk away on that for some precious little fantasy of hanging out with preppy law students and being friends with all the rich kids? Is that what you want?" Dean's voice kept getting louder. "You think you're better than us? You think you have some higher purpose and you're leaving us behind so you're not carrying around our dead weight, is that-"

"I'm only leaving you if you want me to!" Sam shouted over Dean, and that shut him up. He repeated it. "I'm only leaving you if you want me to. I don't wanna leave you, Dean. You're all I've got." Now Sam was fighting back tears too. "I just want out of this life. We never got to be kids, Dean. We should have gotten a chance to be kids. I can't do this anymore. And neither should you."

The look on Dean's face softened as he stood motionless in front of Sam.

"You don't have to be his perfect little soldier, Dean. You don't have to obey him. You're still my brother if you don't."

"It's called being a good son." Dean was looking at the ground, his entire body language spelling out how conflicted he was, pacing all over the place but never settling on a direction for more than two steps. "It's called being a good son. Come on, Sammy, don't do this. Don't leave like this. You don't have to do this."

"No, Dean, you don't."

At this moment, John walked in. "What's all this about?", he asked, already seeming angry. Bad mood. Shit.

Sam looked at Dean, whose eyes were shifting in every direction, clearly trying to decide what his next move should be. Then he closed his eyes, gulped, and looked at Sam with a look so sorrowful that Sam immediately knew what he was going to say.

"I'm sorry Sammy. I can't."

Sam understood. Dean was saying "I understand you. I don't get it but I understand you feel like you have to do it. But I can't do the same. I will let you do this, but hurry up and tell dad before I do because you know it's my job to do that if you don't."

So Sam told him. And he tore through the air with rage. Righteous fury, if you'd asked John, but from where Sam was standing it was a war commander refusing to accept one of his soldiers would abandon the battlefield, except the soldier was a kid. _In this house we tolerate no dissent, at the cost of your honor_ , except what house. What honor? The respect of a man raising his sons like soldiers in a way they had no say in? He was just a kid. He didn't deserve any of this, and neither did Dean, stuck in the middle, pushing them away from each other. A lot of words were thrown around that way, at Sam, at John, at Dean, through and over Dean as he tried to keep the violence strictly verbal, taking hit after hit of John blaming him for letting his happen, duty and worth scrambling in his brain as he did his best to make sure Sammy didn't get hurt.

Sam walked out and slammed the door shut behind him. He wanted to walk away without looking back, but that wasn't fair to Dean. He only wanted to leave John. But when he looked back he didn't see Dean, he just heard more muffled shouting. Dean was alone now, but he had to do this.

As he lays down in his bed, Sam can't stop thinking about that night, playing it out in his mind again and again, retconning it, trying to work out how it could have been different. The big day has finally arrived, his first class at pre-law. He should be excited, he should feel freer than he's ever been, free like he's been craving to be for years. So why can't he move?

He pushes himself to get up, every fiber in his body telling him to stay down. He gets dressed and walks to class. It takes him a few tries to find the right classroom, but everyone seems nice and a few people give him directions. Despite the voice in his head telling him to go back, go away, get out, it does feel nice to be here. The air feels different, lighter. He looks around and gets the strong almost physical feeling that he doesn't belong here, "if only they knew the things you've done and what you've seen", he thinks. If only they knew what he knows about the world. But everything seems so welcoming and everyone looks at him in a way that feels so accepting that he can't help but feel like he is where he's supposed to be.

He bumps into a girl on the way to the class, pretty, a twinkle in her eye.

"Sorry, didn't mean to bump into you like that."

"It's okay. Are you looking for something? Anything I can help you with?"

"Do I look that lost?" Sam asks, flustered. She's beautiful. And he's here to finally live a life for himself, so he decides to take a risk. "I'm Sam, by the way."

"Lila. And yeah, a little bit." She laughs. He says what classroom he's looking for and she tells him the way.

"My classes are usually around here too." She pauses and looks up at him for a bit, smiling, but Sam doesn't react, he doesn't understand what she means. "Maybe we'll be seeing each other again soon", she adds. Sam laughs and says he hopes so, and when she walks away he stands there for a while, thinking about how this is all so new to him. Just like that, he has someone to look forward to seeing. That easy. So easy he didn't even realize it at first. He hopes she at least thought that was cute of him, or whatever else doesn't ruin his chances with her. It was only a moment, but something about her transfixed him. Something in her eyes.

He finally gets to the classroom and it's full. He marvels at how there are so many people there just like him, the same hopes and aspirations. But are they really just like him? The moments where he feels like an outsider come and go, he can't decide if he's finally among his people or if he's a fish out of water. He sits down just in time as the professor walks in and starts talking.

"Good morning. I don't know what terrible things you've done in your life up to this point, but clearly your karma's out of balance to get assigned to my class. I am Professor Annalise Keating, and this is Criminal Law 101, or as I prefer to call it.........how to get away with murder."


	2. Déjà-vu

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sam has his first class with Professor Keating and takes the opportunity to get to know some of his classmates. He and Lila also get to know each other better. Everything seems to be going well until one morning when he finds out about a student who showed up dead, and something doesn't seem right.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I had to change some things a little bit for this crossover to work, including but not limited to this being law school and Sam being pre-Law at the start of S1. But I'm choosing to let that slide.
> 
> Thank you to Tara, Abi and Tiegs for helping me work out how the timeline was gonna work, and to Tara for being my beta reader.

The professor introduces herself and Sam instinctively sits up straight in his chair. It's only afterwards that he realizes what he did and it distracts him from the class for a little bit, he almost finds it funny. So this is what respect without fear feels like, he thinks. And it only took a moment, there's just something about her posture, her whole attitude. First lesson he learns away from home: there is more than one way to walk into a room and become the one who leads.

This Professor Keating goes on to explain that they will be given no freebies, they will have to work to earn their place. Another thing Sam has heard before, but different. She says later in the semester she will choose a few students to become her aids with cases. It's clear this is what he's supposed to want, and he does. It's exactly what he came here for, the person he came here to become. Not exactly "the one who wins", but someone who can succeed in this, be good at something that's not what John drilled into him. He wonders what Dean wishes he could get a chance to be good at. Is he a bad brother for not knowing? Not worse than he is for having left, Sam guesses.

After the class is over, everyone moves to leave the room but they all linger there for a bit. The next class is only a while from now, so Sam sees this as a chance to get to know some of his classmates, feel a bit less alone. He thinks he might as well say hi to whoever is sitting next to him, she seems c-

"I'm engaged", she says holding her hand out without even looking away from her notebook, a monster of a ring on her finger. Probably worth more than all the money Sam has ever seen in his life put together. He chuckles.

"I--I was just saying hi. I thought we coul-"

"Didn't ask, don't care." Well okay then, he thinks. "Seats are assigned, there's a chart over there. This isn't your place." She still hasn't looked at Sam.

"I'm Sam." As in, the name on the chart. He assumes she's seen it. "If we're gonna sit next to each other all semester, I figured I could at least know your name."

She concedes but isn't happy about it. "Michaela Pratt. You'll be reading that name a lot in a few years." She shakes his hand and forces a smile. Sam lets go of her hand and sits there looking at her for a while. Confident, ambitious, direct. Might be a good thing they're seated together if they ever get assigned to work in pairs.

They pack up all their stuff and walk out alongside each other. Or better put, Michaela walks out at a freakishly determined pace and Sam is rushing behind her to ask something about the class's assignment.

"Didn't you hear Professor Keating? Work to earn your place. I'm working to earn mine."

He opens his mouth to answer but at that moment a short, slightly preppy-looking guy cuts in and greets them, obviously trying to seem cool. Michaela is obviously not impressed. Sam only met her five minutes ago and even he could have guessed that.

"Hey. I'm Asher."

"Sam." They shake hands.

"Nice to meet you. Boy, you're tall." Sam nods. Asher looks at Michaela expectantly.

She huffs. "Michaela", she says begrudgingly, much to Asher's contained joy, and tries to walk around him but can't. "Can you please-"

"I was just walking around and overheard you guys and you both seem like the ambitious type, so I was wondering if you guys would like some insider information on some of the faculty. I know some people." He makes a show of looking around to see if anyone's listening, making himself seem like some kind of movie spy. Michaela stops walking. Sam is wondering if this is a normal occurrence. What does he know about what is normal? They stand there for a while, waiting for him to continue, but he doesn't.

".....So??" Michaela finally says.

Asher leans in closer to them, glances up at Sam and then back down, and whispers. "I know a guy who used to take classes with our next prof. Apparently he's a bit on the conservative side and tends to favour arguments that go that way."

"Really? Is that it?" Michaela is not impressed. "He's a former judge elected for the GOP, of course he leans conservative. And besides, you guys using that technique isn't exactly the same as me doing it, now is it?"

Sam and Asher clear their throats at the same time. Asher talks again.

"I-There's more. Apparently he's a part time deer hunter, real gun aficionado, and someone having knowledge on guns whenever it comes up really impresses him."

"How much do you know about guns?", Michaela asks.

"Well, not much, but I figured we could find someone who does and do our due diligence and we c-"

"I can help with that." Sam pipes in. They both look at him and for the first time, Michaela smiles. Who would have known John would make Sam useful at law school. And there's something about the way Michaela looks at him, more expectant than manipulative. It gives Sam the impression that her extreme focus on success that's been made pretty clear by now isn't pure ego, it comes from somewhere else. He can relate to that. Maybe they'll even end up friends.

"Alright then! Sounds like we have ourselves a study club", Asher says, way too excited, and starts telling Sam random facts he knows about weapons in general, most of them wrong. Michaela scoffs and continues walking beside them but makes a point to distance herself.

**\-----**

After the day's classes, Sam goes back to his dorm and is startled by Tom sitting in a chair turned to the door when he walks in, greeting him almost as if he was expecting him at that moment.

"Oh, sorry to scare you. I was just tidying up here." His side of the room is so tidy already.

"It's ok dude, don't worry." Sam throws himself onto his bed.

"So. First day. How was it?"

"Pretty good. Met some people, they seem nice. Classes seem interesting."

"Awesome! You don't seem very happy though. What's up with that?"

"I don't know", Sam says, but he does. That fight is still playing in his mind. He doesn't want to go back, he won't go back, but he can't stop thinking about Dean, partly feeling sorry for him and partly furious with him. For not understanding why Sam wanted this, not understanding that he could have something for himself too. It's like he does it on purpose.

Sam lies there for a while, looking at the ceiling, thinking about how wide the world is now. His dorm is about the same size as a motel room, and he's splitting it with another guy too, it's just a stranger instead of his brother. But for the first time it feels like there's possibilities outside the door, like whatever happens next is up to him and him alone. He gets to decide what he does now, with his hands, with his time, with his day, with his weekend, with his life. He's finally free from his father. There's still some regret tied to that, but he hopes that'll fade with time. Dean doesn't have to stay away. That wasn't the last they saw of each other, it can't have been. Sam won't let it.

By the next morning it's already a bit easier to get out of bed in the morning. Sam says good morning to Tom, who is already up and answers immediately but calmly. Sam still hasn't quite figured him out. He's confident but restrained, never awkward but not exactly warm either. And he asks a lot of questions. Overall he seems nice, he just has a strange energy. It would have been too lucky of Sam to end up with a roommate that became his new best friend, he admits, and then corrects himself. His first ever best friend. It's at moments like this that he starts wondering about his place here, always the same dilemma. Is he finally among his people, or is he a fish out of water? He felt like a fish out of water at home too, so maybe he's just destined to feel like that everywhere. Is destiny even a thing? He hopes not.

He goes to class and runs into Lila again on the way there, but this time he's early so they can chat more. Three days in a row they do this and by the forth Sam gathers the courage to make a suggestion.

"Do you think maybe we could meet somewhere outside this hallway? Grab a cup of coffee maybe?"

"I'd like that", she says, smiling, always that twinkle in her eyes.

"Today at 5, what do you say?"

"Sounds good. See you here at 5. Our spot." She says that last part as a half-joke and walks away slowly, glancing back at Sam along the way to her classroom.

When they meet again, they go to a bar and sit at a table and Sam looks at her in silence for a while. They've gotten to know each other a bit, not much because you can't really get to the core of a person in a few morning chats, but he's figured out by now that there's more to her than what meets the eye. She's an artist, for starters, and strangely almost every drawing she shows him gives Sam a vague feeling of déjà-vu.

"That's how you know it's good", she said when he told her. "It gets to you so fast you think you've already seen it before." Sam smiles at that. "Do you draw too?"

"No, but my dad and brother do."

"Oh, a family of artists! That's cool. What kind of stuff do they make?"

"My dad's sort of a naturalist. Draws what he sees in a little journal. More to have it on record than for the sake of drawing it, I don't think he even enjoys doing it. My brother does though, and dad doesn't really like that. When we were younger he used to take his pencils away to make him stop." As soon as Sam says this he thinks maybe he shouldn't have. He doesn't quite know what is normal outside his family but he's pretty sure this isn't. Lila's silence confirms that.

"Sounds like a fun household", she says sarcastically but still trying to keep it light. Sam beats himself up about having said that. "Do you and your brother get along, at least?"

"We used to. Not sure about now. We had a big fight right before I moved here and we haven't talked since."

"My family's complicated too. From the look on your face when you talk about him, I'd say you can work it out." Lila puts her hand over Sam's and smiles at him. Their families are probably worlds apart as far as "complicated" goes, but it's nice to have someone to talk to that can relate to him, even if just a little bit. And she's really easy to talk to.

After this date, because it was admittedly a date, they walk together for part of the way home and when it's time to go their separate ways, Lila kisses Sam. They each take steps back and walk backwards for a bit, smiling at each other the whole time until they finally turn around and go home. "Home", Sam thinks in many quotation marks. Half a dorm room isn't a home, but he's never really had one so this one will do. He gets there and tries to study for some time, but he keeps breaking away from the books to smile to himself, still giddy. He suddenly realizes what's so special about Lila's eyes: they see you. That's why her drawings are like that. She is always observing the world around her and when she looks at you, she _sees_ you. Realizing that makes Sam feel even more fascinated with her, but he's also afraid of _what_ she sees when she looks at him. A fish out of water? Or something deeper, worse? He brushes it off and decides to go to bed. Tom says goodnight before he gets a chance to and Sam turns off the light.

**\-----**

Starting the next day, Sam and Lila's morning chats feel different. Tentatively, hesitant but excited, they start kissing when they say good morning. Are they officially a couple now? Sam doesn't want to believe it, but Asher seems to think so.

"Go get 'em, tiger! Noice." Sam shrugs him off but can't hide a smile. Asher and Dean are very different but he imagines Dean saying that. Michaela rolls her eyes. "By the way guys, unrelated but..." Asher leans closer to them. He always does this when he thinks he's about to mention sensitive subjects. "Have you guys heard the news about that freshman who showed up dead? Cops say they've never seen anything like it, apparently."

Sam instinctively starts paying more attention. "How so?"

"Dunno. I just hear it was freakin' weird. Something about a witness seeing stuff that couldn't be there."

"Where did it happen? Who was it?" Sam hears himself make these questions without even deciding to do it.

"I dunno, some freshman in those dorms around the field, Kyle something I think? Jesus, don't tell me you're one of those nutjobs obsessed with true crime stuff."

"No no, I was just wondering. So closeby, it's scary." He does his best to seem detached and maybe a little shaken up.

Michaela says a half-distracted "yeah" because class is about to start, and the conversation ends. When Sam gets back to his dorm room, he sits at his desk and once again tries to study but can't, but for a different reason this time. Something tells him those cops are in way over their heads and he might have the knowledge to help them, but that kind of thing is precisely what he came here to run away from. He refuses to engage. But shouldn't he? Doesn't he have some kind of responsibility here? He walked away on John precisely because he didn't want to be a hunter, but if he's the only one who knows what might have killed that freshman, he'll have blood on his hands anyways if he doesn't do anything. Damned if he does, damned if he doesn't. Shit. He rests his elbows on the desk and takes his face to his hands, letting out something between a sigh and a groan. Is he really about to do this? He feels like he should but he hates it, so much. Everything he did to run away from his life with John and he ends up doing the same thing here. Maybe he's run out of time to run away from being a hunter because he already is one, it's too late. Can't escape it now. What is he even doing here, he's never gonna fit in. What's he gonna do, shoot a werewolf and go to classes as normal the next day, talking about how gas heaters are the real danger? But if he doesn't, whatever's out there right now might kill someone else.

Sam sits there for a while, staring at nothing. Tom walks in and asks "why so jittery?" and it's only then that Sam realizes how he looked from the outside. He walks out without saying anything, brushing his shoulder against Tom as he was walking in. Tom says nothing either.

It's still the middle of the afternoon so Sam figures it's a good time to start investigating. It's the first time he does this alone and that almost makes him laugh. He wonders if John would be proud of him for this, what Dean would think of it. The thought of making John proud sickens him, especially making him proud accidentally, as if he simply is who John wants him to be. At every step he takes he gets the urge to go back and just leave this be, but out of the two ways to get blood on his hands, he prefers the one where no more kids die. He gets to the general area of campus the murder supposedly happened and a group of cops are getting ready to leave, saying goodbye to someone standing by the door of one of the dorms. He figures that's where the dead freshman was staying at. This is gonna be easier than he thought.

The cops turn their backs on the girl by the door and start walking away and Sam walks past them running to the door before she gets a chance to close it.

"Heyy. Hi." He says, as charming as he can be. The girl is startled by him and stops pushing the door closed.

"Hi. Uhm. Do I know you?" It's pretty clear she's not in the mood for talking.

"I don't think so, no. Sorry for showing up here like this but, uh, I knew Kyle, we were in some classes together, and I heard about what happened."

"What did you say your name was?"

"I didn't. It's Sam."

"I don't remember him mentioning any Sam."

"We just chatted a bit a few times, we weren't close. But he seemed nice." She looks at him for a while and he can see the wheels turning in her brain, trying to see if he's lying to her. After a moment of silence, she decides he seems honest and lets him in. As they're walking towards the living room, Sam glances at the kitchen and sees blood on the corner of the counter and figures the guy must have been pushed into it and hit his head. Nothing supernatural about that so he figures maybe he blew this way out of proportion and he can go home and not think about his again, carry on trying to have a normal life. But then the girl, Natalie is her name, starts telling him about those strange details Asher mentioned.

"It's silly, it's like something out of a horror movie." She forces a laugh but seems deep in thought.

"What did you see?"

"I saw Kyle lying on the kitchen floor, but then I heard a noise from across the room. And when I looked, it was dark so I couldn't see very well but I could swear I saw him walking out the door."

"Saw who?"

"Kyle", she says, and takes her hand to her face, covering her mouth and trying not to cry.

"You saw Kyle in two places at the same time?"

"I-Yeah. It was only for a split second, and when I turned back to the kitchen he was there, lying on the floor. So it couldn't have been him, right? Of course it couldn't, that's ridiculous. But it was him, I swear it was him. I keep replaying it in my head and I feel like I'm going insane."

Sam puts his hand over hears and says something about how the mind plays tricks on us sometimes. When he leaves, he smiles at her and says he's there if she ever needs to talk. They just met, but he feels like he should say something comforting like that. As he's walking back to his dorm, he reviews in his mind all the creatures he knows about who can make themselves look like someone else, which ones could be lurking around in a place like this. And to think he was so happy to dive into his required reading because for once it wasn't supernatural lore. He has some ideas of what this could be but he's gonna have to do some research to confirm it. So this is it, Sam thinks. You can take the boy out of the hunting but you can't take the hunting out of the boy. He stops in the middle of a path on his way to the dorm, hands in his waist, looking at the ground. So much for escaping John. He feels so furious but he doesn't even know if it's at John, at himself or at the whole world. He kicks a trashcan and has the vague feeling that some people are staring at him. He gathers himself and walks home. It's late. New day tomorrow. Tom asks if he's okay and he says nothing, just lies in bed in silence, staring at the ceiling. Tom says a quiet "mmkay" and goes back to what he was doing. Sam tries to sleep but he can't. Shit. New day tomorrow.


	3. You're a mystery, Sam Winchester

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> As much as he hates it, Sam is hunting again. But he's still in law school, and he needs to keep up appearances. For everyone around him, yes, but maybe most of all for himself.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you to Tara, Abi and Tiegs for helping me work out how the timeline was gonna work, and to Tara for being my beta reader.

Sam doesn't sleep a wink all night, twisting and turning so much that Tom asks if he's okay sometime around 3am. Sam apologizes for waking him up and turns over so he's facing the wall. When morning comes, he can't make himself get up. He tries to imagine what Dean would say. " _Come on Sammy, it's hard work but it's good work, we're saving people. If you don't do this, someone might die. Do you want that on your conscience?_ " Something like that. Then what John would say. " _Still in bed? Get up. I didn't raise you to be a slouch. Do your duty._ " Less encouraging. But Dean would probably then agree with John, say _yes sir_ and _get up Sammy_. Sam would probably find himself saying _yes sir_ too. And then Dean would discretely nod at him with that face he did that said "Good. He's happy. Keep it up Sammy." Sam sometimes wondered what he was really thinking. If he was thinking that if John wasn't mad at Sam he wasn't mad at both of them as a unit. But John never saw them as a unit, Dean was always the perfect little soldier and Sam was just...there. Maybe Dean was thinking that if John wasn't mad at Sam, then he wasn't mad at Dean, because it was Dean's job to monitor Sam. If Sam was behaving, that meant Dean was doing his job right. Dean had two jobs. Now he only has the one, Sam thinks. Maybe that's better.

He finally gets himself up from bed and drags himself to class. His pace picks up a bit along the way there, but when he gets to the hallway Lila still notices something's different. She kisses him and then asks what's wrong, but he doesn't know what to tell her. He says he just had a rough night, no reason.

"Oh no. Well try to get some rest tonight. Do you still wanna grab something to eat after classes?", she asks as she walks alongside him to the door of his classroom.

"Might have to rain check that. I need to go to the library today anyways."

"Okay. But don't stay there too late." Sam feels like she's like this with everyone, naturally kind. But it still feels like he's being doted on too much. He's not used to this.

"I won't, don't worry. Maybe we can reschedule for tomorrow."

"Yeah...tomorrow." She sounds hesitant. Sam catches an expression on her face for a split second that he can't read. Like she's hiding something. That catches him off guard but he tries not to let her see that. He figures he's probably seeing things, the hunter mindset he's on now making him more suspicious. She says goodbye and goes off to her class.

Sam sits next to Michaela, as usual, says good morning and she says it back. Sam, Michaela and Asher have only been meeting once in a while for their study group of sorts, no social hangouts, but Sam thinks they're starting to warm up to each other. The class starts and Sam realizes his latest failed study sessions are making him lag behind. The professor calls him out to answer a question and he has to say he doesn't know. Michaela answers for him and gives him a look.

"You're off today." He wonders if that means she has a good opinion of him on every other day. Sometimes she's an open book but other times she's inscrutable, he still doesn't really know what she thinks of him. Or anything about her at all, for that matter.

"Yeah. Thinking about some stuff I need to research later."

"We have study group later, remember? Are you bailing out on us?"

"No. Just gonna be looking into some stuff on the side."

"You better be focused, I'm not here to waste my time on y-" The professor notices they're talking and singles Michaela out, tells her to shut up and stop disturbing the class. The glares at him like she's accusing him framing her for murder, points at him very subtly but so intensely he flinches. He'd almost be afraid of her if he didn't have enough experience on the matter to know that it's different with her.

After classes, Sam, Michaela and Asher meet at the library and sit down at a table. They're each silently doing their own thing for the most part, but once in a while one of them asks something and most of the time gets an answer, and when that doesn't happen they do some reading together to get there. It's a nice feeling of community that Sam has never felt before and he wonders if this is what all those study groups his classmates talked about were like when he was growing up. In the middle of all this, Sam finds his way to the section of the library with books on folklore and grabs the ones that mention what he thinks might be what killed Kyle, and puts them in the middle of his other books. He tries to seem casual when he's reading from that pile, making sure Michaela and Asher don't see the illustrations. While he's doing that, Asher asks something about how motel policies work because of a case he's reading about, and Sam answers maybe too fast and with too much detail.

"Wow. Have you worked at one of these or something?", Asher asks.

"Or something."

"What does that mean?" Michaela turns to him.

"I've spent my fair share at motels." He tries to keep it vague but they're both still looking at him. "My family was always moving around because of my dad's work so we stayed at motels a lot."

"Huh", Michaela says. "What are you reading?"

"Nothing", Sam says, maybe too defensively this time. Asher says a quiet little "jeez" and Michaela just looks at Sam. He looks at her. "What?"

"Family moved around a lot, living at motels.....freakishly knowledgeable of guns........reading weird books.......you're certainly a mystery, Sam Winchester."

He doesn't say anything and they go back to work, but once in a while Sam glances at Michaela, trying to figure out what she's thinking. She said that jokingly, but she's observant. She's smart. She's probably figured out by now that he's hiding something. Not a criminal past or anything like that, but she probably thinks his life is weirder than he's let them think until now. Sam's feeling of being a fish out of water comes back. Is he gonna feel like a freak everywhere?

After a while they leave the library and go their separate ways. Sam thought he might have to stick around for longer, but the information he gleaned at Kyle's house and from Natalie was enough to narrow it down: it was a ghoul. Strong, fast, drains its victims of blood (detail courtesy of hacking the police files), and they're able to look like whoever they kill, which explains how Kyle was dead and walking out the front door at the same time. Could be a skinwalker too, but that would leave traces. John's come across too many monsters for Sam, with how little he's always cared for hunting, to have them all memorized, but he remembers Dean mentioning ghouls on a hunt he did with John not that long ago. And who is he kidding, of course he has most of it memorized, it's just behind a door in his mind that he thought he could keep closed after coming here. Sam could never shoot as well as Dean, but he's always been good at memorizing things. As soon as he said goodbye to Natalie he was already thinking about which monsters could have killed Kyle, distribution maps for each of them, strengths and weaknesses. Those books at the library were partly just for him to see something that looked like the stuff he'd read before, to get in the zone. Come to terms with the fact that he's really doing this again. He'd been wondering when he was gonna start having something to do in those lonely college nights, so hunting a ghoul it is. He laughs a bit to himself thinking this, but it's not a happy laugh. He's gonna need weapons. On his way to the hardware store, he gets a phone call. It's John. He declines and continues walking.

Sam doesn't want to seem suspicious, since a student was just murdered, so he doesn't buy any actual weapons. Instead, he goes where someone with a casual interest in carpentry would go to and pretends he's buying what he needs to turn some tree stumps into a bookshelf. The pretending is easy, even though he doesn't exactly look the type, and he even manages to be charming. He's good at being charming. The hardest part isn't the lying, it's managing to go through with the whole thing while his mind keeps replaying all the times he's had to be more violent than he ever wanted to be, all those nights getting to a bathroom and scrubbing his hands until they hurt because even after the blood was gone he could still see it. Will Tom see it? Will Lila?

It's getting late, the sun is setting, so he figures he might as well get this over with. Ghouls feed mostly on the dead, Kyle must have been an exception, so Sam goes to the nearest cemetery hoping to come across some unusual behavior. He doesn't know if it's the weather or this being his first solo hunt, but the air feels abnormally cold. Maybe that's why Dean rushed to get under the blankets of his bed when he came home from _his_ first solo hunt, Sam thinks. He sometimes wondered what happened that night, but Dean refused to say anything about it. It made Sam terrified of when John sent him out there alone for the first time, and until two days ago Sam thought he'd escaped that. Sometimes he feels like some higher power is toying with him, but he prefers to think that's not how God works.

He gets to the graveyard and takes some things out of the backpack, some ropes, an axe, and puts them in his jacket, tied around his waist. It's a small axe, but it'll do. He could picture Dean at the store buying a much bigger one. It doesn't take too long strolling the place before he hears a voice behind him, next to a crypt.

"Out past your curfew, aren't you?"

Sam turns around and sees a face he recognizes from a few photos he saw at Kyle's dorm. Bingo. He takes his hand to his makeshift holster and suddenly realizes it probably looks a bit ridiculous, but if it works, it works. It might even help him here. He starts walking towards the ghoul but suddenly another one comes out of nowhere and pushes him into the wall of the crypt. Ghouls can live in packs, he knew that, but he's never done this without a lookout. Or being the lookout. The two ghouls push themselves up against them, one looks like Kyle and the other looks like some poor woman Sam assumes will be found tomorrow morning. He looks around as much as he physically can to make sure there aren't any others and sees nothing, but these two are already biting him, drawing blood.

"Ah yes. I thought I smelled it."

"Oh yes, this one's different."

Sam doesn't understand what they mean. "What?"

They turn to each other and laugh. "He doesn't know? Interesting. Do you think he's one of those?"

"Those what?" Sam doesn't know what to think, part ashamed he let himself get into this situation so fast, part scared he's not gonna make it, part confused at what he's hearing.

"We got ourselves a little freak here. Good to have some variety." The one who looks like Kyle draws more blood from his arm, he flinches.

Sam tries to remember if ghouls can read minds. Nothing in the lore about that, but the lore could be wrong. John's journal isn't exactly gospel.

"Seems like your parents weren't as nice as you think", says the woman. Sam's getting more confused by the minute but he scoffs at this. Maybe they can't read minds after all. She continues. "Oh they weren't nice. That happens a lot, too." She turns to the other one. "Do we kill this one?"

Sam doesn't understand what's going on but he's scared by how close to home it hits. Have these specific ghouls run into John before? But even then, how would they even know anything about Sam? Can they detect something about how he feels? This constant, lingering feeling of being different from everyone else around him, not a hunter but not just some guy either. He'd give anything to be just some guy and go up from there, but there's always been something inside him telling him he can't, something that goes from his core to just underneath his skin, whispering _freak, freak, you're a freak and you know it_. Can they hear it too? Sam feels like it's louder now, getting louder and louder by the second until he can't bear it anymore and a grunt escapes his lungs and the ghouls are pushed through the air away from him and fall on their backs. Sam barely has time to process it before his survival instinct kicks in and he grabs the axe and cuts off both of their heads as they're getting back up. When they fall, Sam falls too, and stays on his knees on the ground for a while. What the hell just happened?

He takes their bodies to a section of the graveyard that feels secluded enough, unlit, ground of dirt and not grass, and burns the bodies, but he's not even paying attention, he's on auto-pilot. He keeps replaying that moment in his head, analyzing every split second of it trying to understand what happened. Did something pull the ghouls away from him? They didn't move like that themselves. Did he do that? He stands there until the fire goes out and then drags himself back to his dorm. When he opens the door, Tom looks up at him from bed and Sam wonders halfheartedly how he's still awake.

"It's late. Are you coming back from Lila's?"

"Yeah", Sam answers in a monotone and falls onto his bed. He tries not to make it obvious to Tom, but for the first time since he arrived here, he prays. To be forgiven for what he did, to be cleansed of the blood he can see in his hands, to be given an out somehow from being this person living this life. He prays for a life where he doesn't need to pray. For the second night in a row, Sam doesn't sleep.


	4. Highs and lows

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It's the morning after Sam's first solo hunt and he doesn't know what to think. This new life he worked so hard for seems to be crumbling around him, but maybe it can be rebuilt. College is full of ups and downs.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you to Tara, Abi and Tiegs for helping me work out how the timeline was gonna work, and to Tara for being my beta reader.

Sam almost doesn't go to classes the next day, but he forces himself to do it. It's not that he doesn't want to, but he's not sure if he's worth it. Anywhere he goes he's a freak, why should he bother trying to have a normal life. He spent the whole night mentally dancing around it but that's what's happening. All those years of his father acting like he thought Sam was nothing but like he was afraid of him at the same time, not wanting to be near Sam but not wanting him to stray away too far either. Sam doesn't even know if John acting like that is what first made him feel like this or if it was just what confirmed it. What came first, the chicken or the egg. He was always different from Dean, but he assumed brothers are never the same person. But there was something else, there's always been something else. Strange dreams, strange feelings, strange stares. Things swimming around in his mind like someone else's memories, nerve endings controlled from afar. What did those ghouls know?

He gets to the hallway and for the first time since his first day here, Lila isn't there. He looks around but doesn't see her anywhere. The first thought that comes to him is "does she know". Does she know he killed last night. Does she know it wasn't the first time. There's no way she could know, but he still wonders. Funny how he finally has the freedom he wanted so much and is now realizing that freedom for him means keeping secrets for the first time. From John's cage to his own.

"You okay there, Sam?" Asher's voice coming from behind Sam startles him.

"Uh-yeah. Sorry, I'm a little out of it today." Asher pats him on the shoulder and they walk into the classroom.

Sam doesn't pay much attention to the class, or any other class that day. He texts Lila in the morning but gets no answer. At lunch he calls her and the phone rings but she doesn't answer that either. "I knew it was too good to last", he thinks. It hasn't been that long since they met but the connection between them was instant. For a moment, he was a regular guy with a regular but amazing girlfriend, the normal life that is always just out of reach for him.

After the last class, Asher tells Sam that he and a bunch of other people are going to a bar and asks him if he wants to join them. "Come on buddy, it'll lift your spirits", he says. Sam gives in and goes with them, Asher, four other guys from their class, two girls, and Tom. Sam checks his phone on the way for a reply from Lila but still no answer, calls her and she doesn't pick up. He sends her a text saying where they're going in case she wants to join them. At first he doesn't want to drink anything, but the others pressure him into it and he lets them. A couple of drinks later, the worries are starting to fade but they're still in the back of his mind. A couple drinks more and they're back to the forefront but different. He doesn't say anything out loud but it must be clear that something's on his mind because Asher says he needs something stronger. Sam agrees and an hour later they're all dancing, but the night is still young so they decide to grab something to eat. That sobers them up and they carry on complaining about their professors, the shitty cafeteria food, the shitty curriculum of most of their classes...One of the guys, Peter, decides to shift the conversation to the two girls that came with them without realizing they're not even there anymore. He's another Winklevoss twin. There's a lot of them around here.

"Dude, they're gone", says one of the others, Tyler.

"What?"

"Yeah they left like an hour ago."

"No way man. Someone got to them before me?" Peter seems legitimately sad but everyone else at the table just scoffs. "Who did they leave with?"

"Each other, bro", one of the others says, laughing.

"Noice", Asher pipes in, and Tyler tells him not to be gross.

"It's the 21st century dude, keep up with the times. Take a queer studies class or two, it'll do you some good. Society has moved past objectifying queer people, we deserve better than that", Tyler says, matter-of-factly.

Asher's face suddenly becomes more serious. "What, what? You're gay?"

"Bisexual. But don't worry, you're ugly."

Asher is immediately offended and everyone else at the table laughs at him. Sam joins them and takes the moment to appreciate how different this whole environment is from being at home with John and Dean, how accepting. Dean should have come with him.

"That goes out to you, too", Tyler adds, pointing at Sam with the same hand he's holding his beer with.

"Who, me?" Sam says.

"Yeah, you. Don't think I don't see you, fresh out of whatever small town you came from. Just because you're not being openly gross like our boy over here, that doesn't mean you couldn't benefit from it too."

Sam raises his arms in that half shrug, half "I'm here for whatever" way, putting his drink down. "Sure, I'll go to that class. I'm here to learn, aren't I? Let's do it."

"See Asher? Small town white boy has the right spirit", Tyler says, holding Sam by the shoulders, and then turns to him wagging his fingers. "That's a promise. I'll text you later."

Asher, still a bit drunk, leans in closer to Sam and asks if he's serious. "Sure", he says, "why not". He's here now so he might as well go for all the things he never had. In that spirit, he calls Lila again. This time she answers and says she's on her way, and as Sam is about to say something in return, he sees her arriving at the bar. They wave at each other from afar, smiling.

"Sam, I'm so sorry I didn't answer your calls, I was busy all day, it's been crazy-" Lila starts talking as soon as she gets within earshot of Sam but he puts his hands on her shoulders, says it's okay, and kisses her.

"It's okay, don't worry. Is everything alright though?" She nods and signals for a drink. Sam introduces everyone and they all settle around the table, talking as they were before. At first Sam thinks Lila looks a bit distracted, but as the night carries on, that feeling passes. Eventually they decide to call it a night and go their separate ways, but Sam and Lila go to her flat together. They get to the hallway and Sam stops and leans against the threshold of her front door, looking at her so fondly it makes her giggle. She gestures for him to come in and they kiss as she guides them backwards towards her bedroom. They stumble into some furniture on the way but get to the bed in the end and let themselves fall onto it, so tangled together they almost trip. Maybe things are gonna be okay after all, Sam thinks. Highs and lows keep coming at a pace he sometimes can't keep up with, but maybe it'll all be okay in the end.

For the first time that week, Sam sleeps through the night.

**\-----**

Sam wakes up slowly, letting the world gradually become real around him. The sun is up and coming into the room in stripes through the blinds, falling on some clothes over a couch, a canvas on an easel and the bedsheets before reaching Lila's face. She's still asleep and looks so peaceful Sam is afraid to move. But it's okay because he doesn't want to, anyways. He lies there looking at her for a while, and at the room around her, this crystalized microcosm of peace and quiet. It's like being inside one of those snow globes he saw on display in stores as a kid and imagined what it was like inside those tiny houses, smoke coming out of the chimney because the people inside light fires for warmth and not to melt bullets. He lets his eyes wander around the room and they stop on the canvas. Whatever she's painting there isn't finished yet, but it's already giving him that feeling of déjà-vu.

"What do you see?", Lila asks drowsily. Sam didn't even realize she was awake.

"Good morning." He turns to her and they kiss, smiling.

"Good morning."

They lie in silence for a bit and Sam finds his eyes drifting back to the painting.

"Like what you see?"

"What is it?"

"Not sure yet. Maybe it's abstract." She does a flowery gesture with her hand as she says that, poking fun at how that sounds. Sam laughs. "No, really. I was standing in front of the easel with no ideas, and suddenly this image just came to me. Very vague. What you see there is just the base colors. It was like that, a figure in the dark, but surrounded by light. But the light wasn't coming from the figure."

"Where was it coming from?"

"I don't know. Maybe someone put it there so whoever the figure is wouldn't get lost in the dark."

"That sounds nice."

"Depends on what the light leads to."

Sam sits with this for a while, looking at the canvas, and then turns to Lila. "Maybe you should be a writer too."

She laughs. "You think so?" She does a funny voice, like some parody of an action star. "I'm not the author, baby, I'm the main character." They both laugh and then kiss until they collapse back onto the pillows. It doesn't take long before they forget the whole thing, lost under the sheets.

**\-----**

The next day, the first class is with Professor Keating. Sam spent the night with Lila again and getting out of bed was difficult again, but for a different reason this time.

"You're late", Michaela says as soon as he sits down. He stops for a moment, takes that, and then carries on taking the notebook out of his backpack.

This time he did manage to study beforehand, and when he gets called to answer a question he knocks it out of the park.

"That's more like it", Michaela mumbles, and Sam feels proud of himself.

He goes through the day's classes a new man, on top of every subject, finally feeling like the student he knows he can be again. He goes home at the end of the day almost feeling at peace with himself. It's a strange feeling to him but he welcomes it. He's energized to study and do all the readings. His phone rings with a call from John and he declines, putting his phone on the edge of his desk to arrange space for his books and notebook.

"Feeling better today I see", Tom says from his desk.

"Better than I've felt in a long time."

"Good to hear." And with this they each silently turn to their work and stay like that for the rest of the afternoon. They have dinner together, chatting about nothing in particular, and then go to bed at about the same time.

For the first time in a long time, Sam dreams. He sees himself in bed with Lila and even looking at the two of them like this, like a fly on the wall, he can't tell where one of them ends and the other begins. The bedroom window suddenly swoops open and the bedsheets flow with the wind, getting in front of his bird's eye view of the scene until they cover it completely. The darkness of the tangled sheets covering the light gives way to Lila looking at Sam, but there's something strange about her eyes. She's dead. She's floating midair, white lines on her neck. She sinks downwards into a world of blue. The blue splashes back and Sam wakes up in a cold sweat, panting.

He sits up in bed and stares at nothing he doesn't know for how long. When he looks at the clock it's 2:24am. He's startled at a noise somewhere in his room but he figures it's him seeing things and lies back down, staring at the ceiling now. He knows this kind of dream. John never liked this kind of dream. And neither does he.

By the time the sun rises he's decided he's probably blowing things out of proportion, everyone has nightmares sometimes. He goes on with his day as normal, nobody even notices his mind is going somewhere else sometimes, or if they do they don't let him know that. When he meets Lila in the hallway like on any other day, he holds her maybe a bit too tight before walking into his classroom, but this is a normal day. Just another normal day, Sam tells himself.

In the afternoon he meets with Michaela to review some things for one of their classes. Just the two of them this time because it's an assignment they had to do in pairs. Sam knew Michaela would be a good partner when those came along.

"You're weird", Michaela says out of nowhere. Sam pauses.

"We've established that."

"No, I mean you're weird today. You have been, lately. What's going on?"

"I thought you didn't care."

"I do if it affects my grade." She says this very assertively but not very convincingly. She plays this part well but deep down she cares.

"It's nothing. I had a rough night."

"Sam Winchester, you are a rollercoaster. One day you're on cloud nine, the next day you look like shit, rinse and repeat. What is going on with you?" He lowers his head, sighs deeply and says nothing. She drags her chair to be closer to him and lowers her voice slightly. "Is this about your family?"

"What?"

"I know an escaped prisoner when I see one."

Sam is startled. He looks her in the eyes. "That obvious?"

"Takes one to know one." She says this like she's doing it against her will. They smile at each other. "You get the hang of being alone after a while. It's only hard while it's new."

"Look at that, Michaela Pratt shows a new side." He chuckles but it's pretty clear he's deflecting, she sees that and he knows she does.

"Don't tell anyone or I'll kill you", she says, and they share a look of implicit understanding that they're deciding to move on from the emotional bonding, but Michaela allows herself one more thing. "I knew you were here for the same reason as me. I could see it in you."

They nod at each other and then continue working.

Sam has the same nightmare that night. He lies back against the wall and takes his hands to his face, praying for it not to be what he thinks it is.

**\-----**

For the next few days, Sam keeps pushing the nightmares down and they keep pushing back even harder. He doesn't have them every night, but almost. Always the same thing: Lila's bedroom, the curtains, her eyes, the white lines in her neck, her hair flowing in the water. The splashes and the cold that comes after it. So much water. Where could it be? He decides it's best to keep pushing it down. Even if he's right, what can he do? One of the nights it happens, he's lying in bed with Lila. He startles awake and scares her, she asks what's wrong. What is he gonna say? I had a dream you were dead, I have it almost every night. No way. He doesn't say anything. He can feel her backing away, leaving room for the secrets. Sam's afraid they'll soon take up so much space he can't reach her anymore. He hates this. On the other hand, he's been feeling like she has secrets of her own too. That day she was gone all day and didn't answer his calls, her hesitant tone the day before that. Sometimes he casually asks her what she did during the day, not even expecting much of an answer, just to know if it was a good day, and she starts talking in zigzags. Is it something she feels like she can't tell him? He starts wondering if he only thinks this is going well and he's simply no good at this. But everything is so easy when they're together. When they touch their bodies fit together they were built for each other. When they kiss the whole world disappears. When he opens his mouth to talk to her he has to close it like a gate before his secrets come running out because his instinct is to tell her everything. His instinct with everyone else is to hide but it's different with her. She feels like what he always imagined having a home would feel like.

At this point Sam doesn't know what's real and what's the constant fear in the back of his mind that everything might crumble to dust. As much as it pains him to admit it, at least with John and Dean things were stable. They were always going from motel to motel, sleeping in the car, hiding from John's drunken rages, but one thing Sam knew is that he could go to sleep every night and John and Dean would be there the next morning. Most days Sam wished John weren't there, but it was guaranteed he would be. He risked his life every other day, but over time Sam came to believe not a damned thing could kill that stubborn son of a bitch. And growing up, death was a strange thing anyways. Death was a being, an entity, something that lurked, but it wasn't the thing that took Mary from them. Whatever did that was the Evil embodied, death was merely the shepherd that walked away that night with her after that thing had left. Death wasn't something that ran after you, it was like a wall that sat in its place and you'd run into it if you weren't careful. If a hunter gets anywhere near death, he's a bad hunter. Death is a sign that says "You have failed". Stay away from that wall, you have work to do. It lurks like a wall lurks, by existing in its stillness knowing you're afraid of it and doing nothing about it. Death is indifferent towards you and that's why it's your job not to run into it. But what is death if you're not a hunter? What is death doing when it isn't lurking in the corner of hunters' eyes and shepherding dead mothers down from the ceiling or helping poor saps up from the ground after the monsters in John's journal kill them? And what do you do when you're afraid of it reaching someone you know? At first Sam was afraid for Dean, but he's a good hunter. Dean wouldn't let himself get killed, he's too good. He has less reinforcements now, one less person on lookout, but he's okay, he can handle himself. But what is Sam supposed to do about these dreams?

He pushes them down. It's all he can do. Or should he investigate? All he knows is it happens in water. But when? How? Ghouls can live in packs, did he miss a third ghoul that's going to kill Lila? What's he supposed to do, go to the graveyard again? What if he doesn't make it out this time? Or worse maybe, what if whatever happened last time happens again? Sam struggles with this for some time, he isn't even sure how long. He struggles to keep track of days. He struggles to keep up with his readings too, but he still manages to answer questions correctly and keep up appearances.

**\-----**

Some days it's easier to push down the nightmares than others. Today is one of those days. Sam has been studying with Tom for most of the evening and after finishing analyzing a case for one of their classes they go to their beds. It's warm, but there are crickets chirping outside and Tom doesn't like the sound so he gets back up to close the window. Sam didn't mind it, but to each their own. He settles his head on the pillow and falls asleep not long after.

In the middle of the night, Sam jerks awake. He didn't have any nightmares, he just suddenly finds himself awake. Everything is silent. He doesn't know how, but he knows. He swallows a whimper and the tears start falling. It happened. And he wasn't there.


End file.
